Skepticism

EVENTS

Ray Comfort is a fraud

Ray Comfort is coming out with a new “documentary” called 180, which he claims has such a powerful, irrefutable argument against abortion that it will reverse pro-choice opinions within 30 seconds. Here’s his promo for it, in which he shows people becoming champions of pro-life mere seconds after hearing it.

Uh, wait…what is the argument? It’s chopped out in every example! Check the website, and it isn’t given anywhere! Why?

There’s another video there: it’s a begging video. Ray Comfort asks for lots and lots of donations so they can distribute this amazing powerful movie that will save millions of babies.

But…it’s an argument that a guy with a microphone can present in less than a minute, and it’s easily comprehensible to young distracted people lounging on a beach. This is low-tech and easy. Doesn’t he have an ethical obligation as a fervent anti-abortionist to simply state it immediately? Shouldn’t armies of anti-choice goons be standing outside of clinics right now, chanting it and converting the patients, nurses, and doctors on the spot?

Somehow, it reminds me of this other video.

But no, Ray Comfort refuses to save the billions and trillions and gazillions of little aborted babies sucked out of liberal wombs every day until he gets his Benjamins. Unless, of course, he’s holding back because it’s actually a crap argument, and once it’s out he’ll be a laughing stock, so he’s getting his money first. Either way, he’s a rotten selfish bastard.

SPOILER ALERT! People who have seen the movie report that the argument goes like this: Hitler murdered Jews. Abortion kills babies. Therefore, abortion is just like the Holocaust.

Yeah, Ray Comfort just pulled another idiotic argument out of his ass. So what else is new?

Comments

Second: What kind of nerve does it take to think you get to decide when and how someone makes decisions about their healthcare? Should we trust your pure judgement on the legitimacy of reasons for other things?

Don’t assume I’m some kind of uncaring finger-pointer who wants to control you uterus.

Like Ing said, there’s no assumption. It is a conclusion based on the words you write. If you weren’t an uncaring finger-pointer who just wants to control my uterus, and the uterii of millions of other women who are also complete strangers to you, you wouldn’t be writing the words that you write.

Look you mother-raping arsehole, we’ll use exactly what tone we like to misogynistic scum like you. If you don’t like it, pick up a rotting porcupine as you leave, and make sure you ram it so far up your anus that you are unable to speak.

The only entity that is truly capable of “protecting the unborn” is the woman in whose body “the unborn” resides.

If that woman is uninterested in protecting it, there is nothing the entire world can do to protect it. If she doesn’t want to protect it, and you do, then you have to abuse her in order to impose your will on hers.

That’s biology. Sucks, but there it is.

Like I said, artificial uteri would render this entire problem a moot question.

Why aren’t pro-life organizations pouring money into artificial uterus research? For that matter, why aren’t they pouring money into researching how to increase the rate of implantation of fertilized eggs? Why aren’t they pouring money into researching how to reduce the rate of spontaneous abortion (aka miscarriage)?

Because they don’t care about fetuses, they care about demonstrating their contempt for women and women’s freedom by imposing their morality on our internal bodily organs.

Perhaps I’d like our society to be less casual about abortion and stop treating it as a form of birth control.

Well Dale, if you want to reduce abortions, stop the need for them by requiring all teenagers to learn about birth control and have cheap and easy access to it. Or does that go against your idea the women aren’t people???

But Ing! Who cares about the quality of life of 7 billion BORN human beings, not to mention the continued existence of countless species and the integrity of the planet’s ecosystems when there are FETUSES that need protecting?

I mean–the poor helpless things are trapped inside the body of some evil selfish woman! We must protect the poor things from their only life support systems! Even if it means destroying EVERYONE’s life support system!

Physiologically a two-month old baby is utterly incapable of surviving without help. Physilogically, a two-month old foetus has a heart beat, a different blood type from the mother. The brain is developed by month 5. Where do we draw the line?? – dale

At birth, fuckwit: nature has in this case provided us with an obvious point at which to draw the line, so when lying arseholes like you still ask that stupid question, your dishonesty and misogyny are clear. Birth is not only the point at which the neonate is anatomically and physiologically separate, and can be cared for by someone other than the mother, it is also the greatest physiological upheaval that biological individual will go through until death. Oxygen perfusion levels before birth are such as are not compatible with awareness after birth; it is therefore unlikely that the fetus has any experiences at all before birth.

Well Dale, if you want to reduce abortions, stop the need for them by requiring all teenagers to learn about birth control and have cheap and easy access to it.

Exactly! Good sex ed with a focus on birth control is the #1 factor to reducing abortions (outside government regulation, of course). Want to reduce the number of teenage pregnancies? Support good sex ed. Want to reduce the number of abortions? Support good sex ed.

My standard is Autonomy and Mindfulness (person hood). For some reason despite that both of those are easily demonstrable and that I think it’s even reasonable to give protects to just autonomy you think this is unreasonable. I’m not sure why. We already use that rubric to decide civic responsibility.

Hitler sanctioned his “cleansing” of Europe of an inferior (not fully human) race, or races based on redefining “personhood”. Do we not see the connection? – Dale

You unutterable filth. How dare you insult Hitler’s victims in this way? These were fully aware people, who were often subjected to months of terror and agony before their death. In any case, it is you who are intent on redefining personhood. The ludicrous identification of the fertilised human egg as a person is unique to the modern anti-choice movement.

Would you support one of your daughters, if raped, to carry a child to term

And a follow up…what would you do if she didn’t want to? Would you defend the fetus against your daughter? And would you do so with more or less vigor than you would defend your daughter against the initial attack?

Exactly! Good sex ed with a focus on birth control is the #1 factor to reducing abortions (outside government regulation, of course). Want to reduce the number of teenage pregnancies? Support good sex ed. Want to reduce the number of abortions? Support good sex ed.

Also: universal access to health care, and general education and economic opportunity for girls and women.

Hitler sanctioned his “cleansing” of Europe of an inferior (not fully human) race, or races based on redefining “personhood”. Do we not see the connection

We do not.

Hitler sanctioned his belief of inferiority based on Martin Luther and on a religious idea of vitalism. Jews were subhuman because they lacked a vitalistic element of person-hood. My definition prevents this by establishing person-hood based on objective criteria not metaphysical exhalation.

I was inundated yesterday by dozens of responses, most of them not nearly as gracious or calm as yours. In response to Neo-nazis having a crazy creation theory justifying their racism, I have no explanation. As I said to someone who mentioned that Hitler was also anti-abortion, all I can say is that simply because one tiny aspect of someone’s world-view might coincide with yours, it doesn’t follow that you hold to all the other aspects with which you don’t agree. Of course I never mentioned creationism in any of my responses, so it would seem that you leaped to an assumption.

I also tuned out a bit because I became disturbed by the hatred of many of the responses. Yet I never cast a judgement on any of the responders, though some were quick to judge me (and of course justified their judgmental spirits because they have the right ideas while mine are wrong). I never resorted to name-calling and only became a little heated when one responder began throwing dirt at me. But they can swear and disparage me, a stranger whom they don’t know, but with a heart they would trample on. I’m certain that many of the responders and I hold common ground. Yet because I am unapologetically pro-life makes me a target for a number of assumptions, many of which are probably wrong. For example, I am also fervently against the death penalty, and my belief in the sanctity of life is one among many reasons for holding that position. I’m also a socialist and politically a libertarian. I do believe that there are situations where abortion can be justified, but don’t believe that it should be used as a method of birth control. Of course we must do all that we can do to protect and care for pregnant girls, and of course provide for the children. I shared my own story about adoption simply to show that these are not merely words but something that I have tried to act upon. If you want to hate me for that, I just don’t know what to say.

Of course we must also instill a greater sense of responsibility in young men. And yes, we must educate children about sex, including promoting abstinence.

I don’t normally visit this website, but was looking for responses to “180”, both positive and negative. I thought I could chime into the discussion on this website and offer a differing opinion, but obviously the climate is not one that fosters open dialogue. I was in essence told to “get the hell out,” and I can hear the cheers of some across the miles. And I will get the hell out, because the level of vitriol has shown me that there is no desire for dialogue. Many of the responses became so hateful, so openly insulting, profane, and abusive, to the point that it became obvious they were motivated by emotion rather than rational thought; someone even using a typo as “evidence” of my idiocy (come on, we’re not writing school essays here!!). I’m sorry that I have dared to question a Lady Macbeth-esque morality (more attacks, please) of “me, me, my, I, I, me, my, and screw you if you get in my business”. I thought I could raise a question or two, but I guess not. And I expect that some will respond hatefully to this, too, because I refuse to be drawn into the culture of death or the mean-spirited attacks that come when it is questioned. And make no mistake, it is a culture of death. I could feel the hatred in the responses, wishing my death.

First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

I also tuned out a bit because I became disturbed by the hatred of many of the responses.

Copmpared to your whiny preaching? That disturbed me. Claims without solid scientific evidence for the fetus, a potential human, to take precedence over the woman, a full human being with bodily integrity.

I never resorted to name-calling and only became a little heated when one responder began throwing dirt at me.

Politeness doesn’t make an argument. Nor does emotion. Facts do, and you were short on evidence.

Yet because I am unapologetically pro-life anti-choice makes me a target for a number of assumptions, many of which are probably wrong.

Fixed that for you.

I do believe that there are situations where abortion can be justified, but don’t believe that it should be used as a method of birth control.

Whoopie shit. Your reasons don’t matter. Your belief doesn’t matter. What matters is you are trying to make a decision for another person on their bodily integrity. There you are absolutely wrong. Or, show us your signed letter from a deity showing you have that authority.

And yes, we must educate children about sex, including promoting abstinence.

Abstinence doesn’t work. That is a proven fact, and a religious value judgement, not reality. What do you have against both the teaching and availability of birth control?

Many of the responses became so hateful, so openly insulting, profane, and abusive, to the point that it became obvious they were motivated by emotion rather than rational thought

Wheras I see your babbling as an emotional, not a rational response. You need to look in the mirror before you criticize others, or pretend you have the authority to tell others anything.

, because I refuse to be drawn into the culture of death or the mean-spirited attacks that come when it is questioned.

Religion is the culture of death. There is no death in abortion, as their is no life, which starts with being born. You don’t like me disagreeing with you. So what? You don’t have the last say, but think you do. You don’t want dialog, you want conversion. Dialog implies you are listening. You aren’t. For example, what will it take for you to become pro-choice? If the answer is nothing will, you can’t do dialog, only preaching.

And Nerd will never convert to a pro-life position, so what’s the difference? A little healthy debate isn’t conversion, though obviously I’m the one in need of conversion or my “difference” wouldn’t have evoked such heated responses. The science tells me there’s a life there, and rhetorical trickery used to rationalize the delusion that we aren’t taking a life isn’t going to sway me.

Admit that you’re not being open-minded either, and are simply calling me ignorant because I’m interpreting the data differently than you. Genetically and biologically we know we are ending a life in abortion- how can you deny that this is true?? How?

How does abstinence not work? I’m not talking about permanent abstinence, but helping our kids to have a little self-control, and helping them to understand that they CAN exercise self control. Yeah, that certainly does sound radical! That’s not religious- it’s basic moral common sense.

And Nerd will never convert to a pro-life anti-choice position, so what’s the difference?

Fixed that for you preacher. If you won’t even consider the pro-choice position, you are preaching, not discussing. We both know that. And it makes you a hypocrite, since discussion implies that you might change your mind. You can change mine with the proper evidence that the potential human in the womb is of greater humanity than the woman carrying it. So far, that hasn’t been done. What is your criteria to change yor mind to the pro-choice position???

A little healthy debate isn’t conversion,

Debate means YOU might change your mind. Obviously you are a liar and bullshitter, typical of anti-choice zealots…

Admit that you’re not being open-minded either,

And where is your open mind??? Hypocrite.

That’s not religious- it’s basic moral common sense.

No, it is religious, and not common sense. Common sense and reality says it doesn’t work. Teens will have sex anyway. And the evidence says those who know and use birth control have less pregnancy, STD, and less sex. What a loser if you don’t know the facts…

Your final line betrays both your arrogance and your flippancy on the subject. This is a game, not honest dialogue. You are unable to engage without insult. Why not?

My position is Pro-life. I don’t childishly alter your language to reflect my position. Don’t change my language either, although you might not agree with me. Doing so is condescending and once again demonstrates your arrogance. But I guess if you’re right you can afford to be close-minded!

You didn’t answer MY question- is the foetus a life or not? I’m not saying that the rights of the foetus trumps that of the mother, but certainly not vice versa either.

You don’t listen to the other side, and you resort to cheap shots. Try a little humanity (oops, I meant humility).

Your final line betrays both your arrogance and your flippancy on the subject.

As does your failure to acknowledge your hypocrisy.

My position is Pro-life anti-choice.

Still can’t get it right. You don’t want people to make there own decisions. You want to make that decision for them. Hence, anti-choice. Quit lying to yourself, then you can quit lying to us, and the lurkers.

Doing so is condescending and once again demonstrates your arrogance.

And your language and inability to discuss the biology rationally shows your arrogance and ignorance. Look in the mirror before you accuse anybody of anything. And pretending to “discuss” when you won’t change your mind is the height of arrogance and hypocrisy.

is the foetus a life or not

I did. It isn’t a full human life until it is born. Any fool who understands the biology understands that. It is at the point where the fetus truly is separate from the woman. Up until then, the woman’s bodily integrity triumphs. What part of that don’t you understand? Oh, the part where I refuse to make the pregnant woman a slave to a fetus.

You don’t listen to the other side, and you resort to cheap shots. Try a little humanity (oops, I meant humility).

You don’t have the answers either. A little humility on your part could acknowledge you could be wrong. But your arrogance prevents the obvious look at your presuppositions, and to the reality of the situation.

Dale, let me be honest. The fact that I gave you a difficult question, and you come back whining about tone and ignoring me, when I’ve tried to be nice and even, makes me suspicious of the earnestness of your claim or integrity of your response.

Holy shit, dale, get off the cross, someone else needs the wood. We’re angry because people like you want to take away womens’ rights to their own bodies. People have died over this, especially back in the good ol’ days when they had to get abortions illegally and unsafely. We’re angry because we care about people, real people, and that doesn’t delegitimize our position. Hell, if anything, it strengthens it. I’m sure you’d love to take our anger away and silence us, but it ain’t gonna happen.

I do believe that there are situations where abortion can be justified, but don’t believe that it should be used as a method of birth control.

I also submit to you that you have no damn idea why women get abortions. Either way, who do you think should have the decision? Who do you think has the right and the authority to say to women, “You can’t do this to your own body for this reason”? Grandstanding politicians? Celibate religious leaders? Public health practitioners (who are sworn to not do harm to their patients)? Or does it make more sense to recognize that every situation is different, every person is different, and therefore the choice best lies with that person?

Mississippi voters rejected that hateful personhood amendment and the vote was not anywhere near as close as the christian slavers thought it would be. The anti-woman brigade was predicting a win, the rational human beings hoped we could squeak out a close defeat of the slavery amendment.

According to the AP, only 42% of the backwards voters supported enslaving women.

Well, yeah, 42% against women’s lives and freedom. Jayzus. But still, given it’s Mississippi, and given people there vote against their own best interests all the time in the name of fundie religion, this vote gives hope that the Xtian stranglehold on the American public might be finally weakening. Even in one of their most traditional areas, hooray, hooray, hooray.

And even on the heart-tugging issue of “think of the babeeez”.

Thank Athena. Thank Ishtar. Thank Isis. Thank Eris. Thank whatever goddesses have ever been imagined that the men of Mississippi were not able – this time – to force women into being their helpless incubators.

Yeah, I know, you still can’t actually get an abortion in Mississippi. But at least now you can’t be jailed for life for an accidental miscarriage, or for going out of state to get an IUD implanted. At least now it won’t be “all babies, all the time, for all women, no matter what.”

Next, we humans have to take back Alabama, Virginia, Utah, South Dakota, Idaho …

Of course I can see why that would be offensive. But I’m not saying that those in the pro-choice camp (see, I’ll still respect your “choice” of wording) are Nazis. Finding a point of similarity does not lead us to an absolute comparison. We aren’t saying that you are Nazis, but that the dismissal of the unborn resembles the manner in which the Jews and others throughout history have been marginalized, enslaved, or eliminated. Jews were rendered “sub-humans” in Germany in the 1940’s and colonial slaveowners bought and sold Africans as “property.” As a matter of fact, the Supreme Court in 1857 ruled that Dred Scott, a black slave, was not a “person” with rights but the “property” of his master. Was the Court wrong then? Of course! The Supreme Court of 1973 that legalized abortion nationwide with its Roe v. Wade decision was just as immoral and unjust. They dehumanized an entire class of human beings in order to legitimize wholesale discrimination against them. Abortion may go down in history as the greatest human rights abuse of all time. (www.prolifephysicians.org)

Now, we keep returning to this idea of the foetus as nun-human, or not “fully” human, which is poppycock. You keep telling me to stick to facts, so here goes. Please read the following except from Maureen L. Condic, Ph.D., Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, University of Utah School of Medicine:

“Current scientific evidence in human embryology and addresses two central questions concerning the beginning of life: 1) in the course of sperm-egg interaction, when is a new cell formed that is distinct from either sperm or egg? and 2) is this new cell a new human organism—i.e., a new human being? Based on universally accepted scientific criteria, a new cell, the human zygote, comes into existence at the moment of sperm-egg fusion, an event that occurs in less than a second. Upon formation, the zygote immediately initiates a complex sequence of events that establish the molecular conditions required for continued embryonic development. The behavior of the zygote is radically unlike that of either sperm or egg separately and is characteristic of a human organism. Thus, the scientific evidence supports the conclusion that a zygote is a human organism and that the life of a new human being commences at a scientifically well defined “moment of conception.” This conclusion is objective, consistent with the factual evidence, and independent of any specific ethical, moral, political, or religious view of human life or of human embryos.
Based on a scientific description of fertilization, fusion of sperm and egg in the “moment of conception” generates a new human cell, the zygote, with composition and behavior distinct from that of either gamete. Moreover, this cell is not merely a unique human cell, but a cell with all the properties of a fully complete (albeit immature) human organism; it is “an individual constituted to carry on the activities of life by means of organs separate in function but mutually dependent: a living being.”

You are denying the rights of the embryonic human based on arbitrary, rather than scientific, criteria.

Now, we keep returning to this idea of the foetus as nun-human, or not “fully” human, which is poppycock.

Compared to your poppycock that a woman must become an involuntary slave to the fetus anti-choice proselytizer?

Finding a point of similarity does not lead us to an absolute comparison.

The similarity is you try to denigrate the humanity of the woman. You do that when she doesn’t have any choice about bodily integrity. Which makes any compaisons of your suspect as presuppositional drivel.

You are denying the rights of the embryonic human based on arbitrary, rather than scientific, criteria.

No I deny no rights to a fetus. It isn’t human, and isn’t until it fully develops. Your argument from authority is bullshit. Just like the rest of your inane arguments.

The main question is, WHO GAVE YOU PERMISSION TO DECIDE THAT A FULLY ADULT FEMALE MUST LOSE HER BODILY INTEGRITY? That is what is on the table, not your bullshit about fetal development. And why are you avoiding that question?

Now, we keep returning to this idea of the foetus as nun-human, or not “fully” human, which is poppycock.

It is indeed poppycock. Even if a fetus is 100% self-aware, thinking, and able to use language to communicate, that doesn’t mean I’m obliged to grant it the use of my uterus for nine months.

Even if you’re dying of leukemia, the government doesn’t have the right to strap me down and force me to donate bone marrow to you.

That’s because WOMEN are people. Explain why you think it’s acceptable to force a woman, a fully-formed human being with rights, interests, and desires, to give up her autonomy in order to “protect” a fetus against her OWN SELF?

Explain how you “protect” a fetus from a woman with an unwanted pregnancy WITHOUT ALSO ATTACKING THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN IN WHOSE BODY THE FETUS RESIDES? You can’t, it’s impossible. In order to “protect” fetuses from the women in whose bodies they reside, you MUST perforce attack those women and their right to autonomy, their right to decide their own fates.

Ergo, we deduce that you have nothing but contempt for women and women’s rights.

Are you some sort of intellectual masochist, that you enjoy being reminded of that uncomfortable fact over and over again? Please find some other group of people to remind you of your failure to be a decent human being.

@Dale
I’d also like to point out that for all your self aggrandizing moralistic whining, I have been far nicer to you than I have to anyone here for years. Yet you respond by calling me a Nazi, associating me with the people who tried to kill off a big chunk of my ancestors, and sling slanderous abuse. You’re asking for much but giving little.

First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

Speak out all you like, but there’s no organized campaign to “come for” fetuses and zygotes. There are only individual women who have decided they don’t want to be pregnant and give birth.

Now, in order to to more than “speak up” for the zygotes, if you want to ensure that the women in whose bodies they reside (I keep using this phrase because it’s something you don’t want to think about) allow those fetuses the chance to make use of their internal organs for nine months, thereby putting those women’s health and life at risk, YOU are going to have to “come for” the women.

Another question you’ve been avoiding answering: if personhood begins at conception, then abortion truly is murder, legally speaking. Please share with the class the appropriate prison sentence women who seek or get abortions should receive, and also how you propose to prevent women who want to end their pregnancies from doing so. Do you want to add a large maternity ward to every prison so we can lock up every woman who’s suspected of trying to terminate her pregnancy? Please explain why, or why not.

You are aware that not every zygote initiates a pregnancy, right? Many of them fail to implant and just get flushed out of the system. So much for those special snowflakes. So your definition of “life” is just as arbitrary as ours, if not more so. Ours also has the benefit of not taking away the right to bodily integrity of women.

As a matter of fact, the Supreme Court in 1857 ruled that Dred Scott, a black slave, was not a “person” with rights but the “property” of his master. Was the Court wrong then? Of course! The Supreme Court of 1973 that legalized abortion nationwide with its Roe v. Wade decision was just as immoral and unjust. They dehumanized an entire class of human beings in order to legitimize wholesale discrimination against them.

Liar, liar, liar.

Roe v Wade ruled that a woman was a “person” not the “property” of some man’s interest in her uterus. This was indeed the moral and just ruling, and the only ruling which could possibly match with a basic concept that women are humans (not slaves, not cows, not incubators with legs).

Overturning Roe v Wade would be exactly like re-adopting the Dred Scott decision, dehumanizing an entire class of people – women – in order to impose wholesale discrimination against them.

Your perspective is 180 degrees from the truth, Dale. You could not be more wrong if you tried.

Unborn life means nothing. There is NO “entire class of human beings” in unborn zygotes. It is simply not a fact, no matter how much you want to lie about the definition of “human being” to try to make it so.

Women, on the other hand … any decent person knows that living men and women are human beings. Funny how often we have to remind anti-choice, anti-abortion, anti-woman, anti-life assholes that women are people. Amazing how indecent the anti-choicers are.

It’s almost as if they can’t admit women are people, because then they would have to admit women have rights …

The lying misogynist scumbag dale, like his lying misogynist scumbag puppetmaster Rat Comfort, has claimed that supporters of women’s right to control their bodies are doing what Hitler did: defining a class of people as nonpersons. But the (fortunately unsuccessful) attempt to pass a law in Mississippi defining “person” to include fertilised human eggs, shows quite clearly that this is not the consensus meaning of “person”, and it is the lying misogynist scumbags who are trying to change its meaning.

I’m going to share an anecdote about how anti-choicer are actually anti-life.

Oh, they claim to be pro-life, and we all know how stupid that lie is. They consistently vote against welfare, against public education, against everything that might aid the “precious life” once it’s actually a living child. And of course they don’t care about the woman’s life in the least – not only don’t these anti-abortion assholes not care about the quality of the woman’s life, they don’t care about her life at all. Their leadership and the majority of the followers explicitly force a woman to die rather than abort a fetus which was physically killing her (see the women dying of ectopic pregnancies in anti-abortion states/nations). Then, just to make it a little worse, they also hate everyone else whose real lives would be improved when one woman chooses an abortion: they’re anti the lives of the children in the same family, who will be neglected and starve when their mom is forced to bring yet another baby into the world, and who instead might live a decent life if only their mom wasn’t forced to by the anti-woman squadrons.

But even the very best of the anti-choicers, the rare ones who say “we’ll help you adopt out your baby, or we’ll help with childcare and food”, they are still anti-life for the people surrounding the woman who they force to endure an unwanted pregnancy and birth.

My uncle died because of those anti-life anti-choicers. My uncle was suffering from suicidal depression and the only person he trusted to help was his sister, my mom. But my mom lived in a time and place where she could not get an abortion, not even to save her life, and she was going through a life-threatening pregnancy then. It would have been such a simple matter to have a medical abortion, but the so-called pro-lifers don’t believe in saving women’s lives. Finally my mom pulled through but while she was incapacitated with the aftermath of her pregnancy, my uncle lost his battle with his demons and killed himself. I never knew him.

Our family, staunchly hateful anti-abortion religiotards all (except my poor mom) united to shun my uncle’s surviving wife and kids, because of course they were “tainted” by his suicide. And they never forgave my mother for even wanting the possibility of an abortion to save her own life, either. So counting my uncle’s family and my own family, that’s a dozen people whose lives were ruined by so-called-pro-life forces.

There is never any excuse for allying with that kind of anti-woman, anti-life hate force.

Dale, I’m talking to you. This is what your stance leads to directly. It leads to you causing the death of an innocent man who needed the help of the pregnant woman who you think should rather die than abort.

Dog forbid that abortion be available as a remedy for contraception failure, because then you just know that careless women will use abortion instead of contraception, and dog knows, we can’t have that! Dog forbid there be exemptions for an abortion to save the mother’s life, or health, because then you just know that lying women will get conniving doctors to go along with some made-up or insignificant health reason. And there can’t be an exemption for rape or incest, that would be purely evil, because it’s not the “innocent little baby’s” fault how it was conceived ! No matter what, a woman who gets pregnant (in or out of marriage, with or without consent, using contraception or not) is harboring some kind of “sacred” life; she must be enslaved to it because it will turn out to be human if it gets born.

Dale, people just like you caused my uncle’s death and almost caused my mom’s death. I will never forgive you or anyone like you who advocates for any limit on my mom’s choice. Or any woman’s choice.

I spit on your anti-choice anti-life position. So should every thinking person, male or female, on the whole planet. I’m on the side of humanity – I’m really on the side of life – I want every child to be wanted and born into a family where he can be safe and be cared for. And that means I have to be totally on the side of abortion and women’s right to choose, because that’s the only possible way to make sure all those “precious little zygotes” are actually wanted and can be cared for when they finally get born.

Now, we keep returning to this idea of the foetus as nun-human, or not “fully” human, which is poppycock. – dale the lying misogynist scumbag

It is human in a biological sense. So is every unfertilised human egg, every human spermatazoon, every human cancer cell. It is most emphatically not a person, and it is people to whom we should assign rights, not spermatazoa, cancer cells, or foetuses. You want to force women to go through pregnancy and childbirth in the name of your fuckwitted religion. Comparisons of pro-choice people to Nazis are undoubtedly behind the harassment of women entering clinics and the murders of abortion doctors, for which you, since you make such comparisons, have personal responsibility.

Funny how Dale is totally and utterly unwilling to “discuss” why a woman becomes less important than a fetus…Typical of the forced birth brigade. They have their scripted set of lies concentrating on the fetus, and can’t deviate from the script, because it might cause them to change their minds to due to actually listening to the real evidence of what they are doing, like dehumanizing the woman…

The woman is NOT less important than the foetus, and most (though admittedly not all) in the pro-life camp agree that abortion IS justified in cases where the mother’s life is at risk. I am listening… and the comments I have heard have indeed encouraged me to sympathize. Check out “Feminists for Life” to see where we might find some negotiation of these waters and truly embrace the value, dignity, and humanity of BOTH woman and foetus.

most (though admittedly not all) in the pro-life camp agree that abortion IS justified in cases where the mother’s life is at risk.

Then they aren’t really anti-abortion, are they? They think it is acceptable in certain circumstances, and thus shouldn’t be completely banned. It isn’t an inherent, unjustified evil. But, what do you know , 50% of Americans think that abortion is “morally wrong” (wonder who those people would be!) while another 40% think it is “morally acceptable”. “It depends on the situation” would be the answer we would expect of people who call themselves pro-life but believe abortion is acceptable to save the mother’s life, but only 7% of people in 2011 gave that response. Something is wrong with that picture.

But, yes, almost 70% of “pro-life” people actually support abortion to save the mother’s life. And, on that note , did you know:
-60% support abortion in case of rape
-5% want to keep abortion legal in the third trimester (!) and 30% want partial birth abortion to be legal.
-30% support abortion in cases where baby might be impaired, where it might cause mental health problems in mother, or when it is the first trimester (!).
-By contrast, only 60% want to ban federal funds to abortion providers and give opt-out options for those who have issues of “conscience” on the matter.

In other words: at least 30% of “pro-lifers” don’t even know what “pro-life” actually fucking means. For fucks sake, at least 30% of them CONSISTENTLY advocates for abortion as long as it isn’t the second/third trimester or they aren’t getting an abortion for financial reasons. Allowing first trimester abortions, and abortions in case of rape/mother’s health risks is the ONLY consistent feature of the pro-choice part of that survey, with 90% agreement, and about 50% on the pro-choice side don’t even support the second/third trimester abortions or abortion for financial reasons. Yet, despite having virtually identical beliefs to the vast majority of the pro-choice side, this 30% of “pro-lifers” decides to affiliate with a side that they don’t agree with at all . I know that these kind of people are self-deluded and hypocritical, but that’s just a whole new level!

The woman is NOT less important than the foetus, and most (though admittedly not all) in the pro-life camp agree that abortion IS justified in cases where the mother’s life is at risk.

Sorry, if the woman doesn’t have full bodily integrity, then she is a second class citizen, being demoted for being pregnant. What the anti-choice fuckwits like you do is demote the woman a lesser person that the fetus. That is reality if she doesn’t have full bodily integrity, and you haven’t shown anything otherwise. Just tried vainly to pretend you aren’t doing the demotion. That is the reality of what you do, and you words are worthless, as the anti-choice people are known liars and bullshitters.

You still haven’t adressed why you get to make the decision for the woman…

The woman is NOT less important than the foetus, and most (though admittedly not all) in the pro-life camp agree that abortion IS justified in cases where the mother’s life is at risk

So men should be required by law to be blood and organ donors?

This is such bullshit. You’re arguing it’s murder. You used nazi comparison. Suddenly now it’s ok to murder people to save your own life? Is it ok to run someone down with my car because they’re my blood type and I need a kidney?

Oh, I should also note, Dale, that your moronic Godwin-invoking claptrap in 555 and further back completely undermines your credibility in trying to use “well, some ‘pro-lifers’ prioritize the life and well-being of the mother over the fetus” to dodge claims of a misogynistic world-view. You don’t get to come in here and bark at us for treating incubating, non-sentient proto-humans as “sub-human” (just like them dar Nazis did to non-incubating fetuses in their 33rd+ trimester) and then pretend that you can, after using this nonsensical argument, turn around and also support the abortion of fetuses in certain circumstances. Sorry, that doesn’t fly. It doesn’t make sense to simultaneously say that fetuses are not to be viewed as “sub-human” and then also say that it makes perfect sense for your side to give priority to the mother in determining who lives and dies. How the fuck do you reconcile that with your opinion that abortion is “humans right abuse”?

Frankly if you’re not willing to have a room where a woman is strapped down, legs in stirrups and either gagged or sedated while a warden/doctor delivers the baby against her will you aren’t being consistent with the abortion=murder.

Dale also needs to be reminded that abortion is sometimes for what is basically DOA fetuses. Deformed, going to die or already dead fetuses. Actual anti-abortion laws have forced women who wanted their child and have effectively miscarried to GIVE BIRTH TO ITS CORPSE AFTER CARRYING IT AROUND AS A WALKING TOMB FOR WEEKS TO MONTHS.

The woman is NOT less important than the foetus, she just deserves to be reduced to a walking incubator, while the foetus is granted rights above and beyond all walking incubators, who should just shut up and give birth on command, because jesus.

But, Ing! If we ALLOW women to avoid being walking foetus corpse containers, then we might have to admit that pregnancy is dangerous and that its not all flowers, candy and happy bundles of joy.

We’ll have to admit that being anti-choice = being pro-forcing women to be walking foetus corpse containers. We’ll have to admit that anti-choice laws hurt women, make them needlessly suffer for Dale’s feigned piety, and do FUCK-ALL to help anyone but politicians looking to stir up the Punish the Bitches voting block.

The greater issue seems to be that you are using a moral/ethic system based on fiat. Basically Abortion is wrong to you because you believe it is wrong. Most of us here would argue that is a profoundly bad way to judge morality. Murder isn’t wrong because it’s murder, it’s wrong because of the effects such an act has. We have all sat down, put on our thinking caps, and tried to think of what the cost/benefit analysis of allowing abortion or not allowing it is and come to the conclusion that not allowing it causes greater harm.

@Dale, even if I stipulate that the fetus is a baby, a human with rights (which I do not in fact believe), can you please explain to me how one human can be forced to use their own body to physically support another? you can’t even be forced to give blood or donate organs post-mortum.

Does a civil government have the right to authorize the intentional killing of an innocent person?

No. However, neither does the civil government have the right to deny a person’s right to bodily autonomy.

On the other hand, you are arguing pro-life while linking to a webpage that talks (allegedly) about a patient of George Tiller. Do you have any idea what happened to Dr. Tiller? Do you think that is OK?

The Preamble of the Constitution states a purpose of the Constitution to be to:

“secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”.

I declare the unalienable right of Life to be secured by our Constitution “to ourselves and our Posterity”. Our posterity includes children born and future generations yet unborn. Any legalization of the termination of innocent life of the born or unborn is a direct violation of our unalienable right to life.

The pre-born child, whose life begins at fertilization, is a human being created in God’s image. The first duty of the law is to prevent the shedding of innocent blood. It is, therefore, the duty of all civil governments to secure and to safeguard the lives of the pre-born.

To that end, the Constitution of these United States was ordained and established for “ourselves and our posterity.” Under no circumstances may the federal government fund or otherwise support any state or local government or any organization or entity, foreign or domestic, which advocates, encourages or participates in the practice of abortion.

Our posterity includes children born and future generations yet unborn

Nope, our posterity includes wanted new generation, not unwanted. Who gave your permission to make that decision for a woman. Let’s see your recent signed letter from god. Or you don’t have that permission…

Any legalization of the termination of innocent life of the born or unborn is a direct violation of our unalienable right to life.

Hey, dale: Is your friend’s argument here at all consistent with the idea that abortion should be allowed in the case that the mother’s life is at risk? Do you think that your friend is the exception, in providing arguments that clearly preclude any possibility for legal abortions? Because, quite frankly, his and your inane arguments are profoundly common among “pro-lifers” and are both blatantly inconsistent with the milquetoast (or self-contradictory) stance you try to hide behind in 570.

You know I’m moderately good at reading people and I keep remembering this one interview I saw with Ray Comfort where the interviewer made the comment about how much money Ray has made from his multiple books and Ray said something along the lines “well it’s really just the same book rewritten each time” and the interviewer laughed.

The thing for me was, that wasn’t said as 100% a joke; there was some sheepishness and almost a tinge of shame I think I picked up on. It was almost as if on some level Ray does realize he’s got nothing unique or original and is bilking people.

Then I saw him on the AE show where he admitted there are parts of the bible he doesn’t agree with.

On some level Comfort knows he’s lying, and I think there’s even some guilt about that.

“At tonight’s Republican debate, former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain was given the center seat. You can tell Cain was in the center because he was wearing one of those little plastic tables that protects the cheese.” –Jimmy Fallon